By that time the four younger Grahams had grown used to going daily to the little village school, where the pupils at most numbered fifteen, and the master taught "the Latin" with a strong Doric accent and an absolute enthusiastic love of all learning, which could not help communicating itself to the boys and girls in his care. He taught the secular subjects untiringly, and the minister, Mr. Craigie, poured the "Shorter Catechism," and much else, into the children twice a week so sternly, that it was at first quite a surprise to the Grahams to find him the best of comrades and friends out of school. It was during a thrilling expedition to the loch for fishing--Shorter Catechism not so much as mentioned--that Joey confided in him to the extent of asking if thirteen and tall for one's age might stand a chance as a pupil teacher at "a proper girls' school." "For if I didn't cost anything, Ronnie could go, and he's over ten now, and would be fearfully old by the time I'm seventeen," she explained. "I suppose I could teach the small kids like Kirsty, and I could always punch their heads if they ragged in class." Joey never could think why Mr. Craigie should laugh so helplessly at this suggestion; but he was very kind all the same, and said that he would see what he could do. What he did was to talk things over with the schoolmaster, and then to write a letter to: MISS JEAN CRAIGIE, Redlands College, Lincolnshire. A few days later he called on Mrs. Graham, accompanied by the schoolmaster, and with the answer to that letter in his pocket. Redlands offered a scholarship once in every four years to be competed for by girls under fourteen; the scholarship provided four years free at the great fen-country girls' school, and forty pounds annually for books and clothes! He wanted to enter Joey for the scholarship, though the entrance examination loomed only six weeks ahead. "She seldom remembers the Shorter Catechism, but the child has a brain," he said; "and what is more important, she has grit. I don't say that she can win the Redlands Scholarship, of which my sister, the mathematical mistress there, writes full particulars, but I do say that she might, although the competition will be enormous. Let her try." And Mums had thankfully said, "Yes." Joey worked early and late during those six weeks, in spite of holiday-time for the rest of her world. She lived between the manse and the schoolmaster's, and the two clever men coached her untiringly. And then the sealed papers came down (by special permission) to Mr. Craigie; and for three days Joey, hot, inky, and anxious, was shut up in the minister's study, answering the terrible questions the examiners had set. And then Mr. Craigie packed her sheets of foolscap off to Redlands, and there was nothing left to do but to wait. She had been waiting now for ten long days.